Transferrin-functionalized nanographene oxide for delivery of platinum complexes to enhance cancer-cell selectivity and apoptosis-inducing efficacy

Abstract

Rational design and construction of delivery nanosystems for anticancer metal complexes is a crucial strategy to improve solubility under physiological conditions and permeability and retention behavior in tumor cells. Therefore, in this study, we designed and synthesize a transferrin (Tf)-conjugated nanographene oxide (NGO) nanosystem as a cancer-targeted nanocarrier of Pt complexes (Tf-NGO@Pt). This nanodelivery system exhibited good solubility under physiological conditions. Moreover, Tf-NGO@Pt showed higher anticancer efficacy against MCF human breast cancer cells than the free Pt complex, and effectively inhibited cancer-cell migration and invasion, with involvement of reactive oxygen species overproduction. In addition, nanolization also enhanced the penetration ability and inhibitory effect of the Pt complex toward MCF7 breast cancer-cell tumor spheroids. The enhancement of anticancer efficacy was positively correlated with increased cellular uptake and cellular drug retention. This study provides a new strategy to facilitate the future application of metal complexes in cancer therapy.

Multifunctional temozolomide-loaded lipid superparamagnetic nanovectors: dual targeting and disintegration of glioblastoma spheroids by synergic chemotherapy and hyperthermia treatment

“…This result is in line with different evidences found in the literature, where the clathrin-mediated endocytosis resulted the preeminent internalization pathway for both iron-complexed Tf and TfR-targeting nanoparticles. [29–31] The internalization of both functionalized and non-functionalized nanovectors in caveosomes did not result significant, probably due to the relatively large size of these nanovectors. [32] Furthermore, a higher amount of AbLMNVs was found in rab11 + vesicles with respect to the LMNVs.…”

Enhanced antitumor activity of bovine lactoferrin through immobilization onto functionalized nano graphene oxide: an in vitro / in vivo study

“…No antitumor activity of control indicated that the CGO-PEG acts only as a carrier and has no cytotoxic itself. Reports have been shown that the cytotoxicity of GO is dependent on its concentration and exposure time (Chen et al., 2014 ; Xu et al., 2015 ; Zhu et al., 2017 ). Moreover, it seems that type of the treated cells, size and the functional groups of GO may be effective on its cytotoxicity.…”

Nanocomposites as biomolecules delivery agents in nanomedicine

“…NPs could be internalized through endocytosis by energy-dependent pathways. Overall, receptor-mediated endocytosis was the primary pathway [82, 161, 164, 165, 172, 176], but GO decorated with Pt, dextran-spermine biopolymer and micellar NPs cellular uptake involved clathrin-mediated endocytic and dynamin-dependent lipid raft-mediated pathways [30, 173]. Furthermore, micellar structure could be internalized via caveolin-dependent endocytosis and micropinocytosis.…”